SGR “Not Acceptable” — But Where’s the Administration’s Solution?
In response to Sen. Bunning, Dr. Berwick just said the current SGR situation – with physicians facing a reimbursement cut of up to 30 percent by January 1 – is “not acceptable,” and that the Administration supports a long-term fix to Medicare reimbursement. If that’s the case, where’s the Administration’s plan to pay for a long-term “doc fix?” The President’s own budget proposed increasing the deficit by $371 billion to finance a long-term SGR fix – and no one within the Administration has come up with an alternative to pay for SGR reform. Of course, if the Medicare savings provisions had been re-directed to finance SGR reform – rather than creating new entitlements – Congress could have paid for a generous “doc fix,” as an analysis by former CBO Director Doug Holtz-Eakin has demonstrated.